When you’re making a decision about which car to buy or where to go on holiday, chances are you’ll ask people you trust. You want to hear from those who’ve already weighed up the options, made their own choices and can tell you what worked — and what they’d avoid.
Yet when it comes to the decisions that can have a far greater impact on your business, it can be easy to rely on your own experience alone. That’s where the perspective of other business owners can be so valuable. They’ve faced difficult decisions, tested ideas, made mistakes and learnt what works — experience you can draw on before making your own call.
So why don’t more business owners tap into that collective experience? Some of it may come down to misconceptions about peer advisory boards. Let’s look at four of the most common, and what business owners could be missing as a result.
#1. Peer advisory boards are only for businesses that are struggling.
Peer advisory boards can absolutely help when your business is facing a challenge. But waiting until something goes wrong misses much of their value.
Some of the most valuable conversations happen when business is going well — when you’re deciding what comes next, testing a new opportunity, working through a strategic decision or asking how much more the business could achieve.
There’s a reason larger organisations have boards that meet regularly rather than only when there’s a problem. They bring different perspectives and experience to important decisions and help shape the organisation’s strategic direction.
A peer advisory board brings that same principle to privately owned businesses. You sit alongside other experienced business owners who bring their own lessons, successes and mistakes to the table — and who can challenge your thinking in ways that are difficult to achieve when you’re making decisions on your own.
If you can see greater potential in your business, the collective wisdom of other business owners can help you work out how to realise it.
#2. I’m experienced. I don’t need anyone telling me how to run my business
There’s a phrase we hear time and again from business owners around The Alternative Board table: you don’t know what you don’t know.
Experience is incredibly valuable. But no matter how long you’ve been in business, you’re still looking at it through the lens of your own experiences, assumptions and ways of thinking.
That’s where other experienced business owners can make a difference. They can ask the question you hadn’t considered, challenge an assumption you’ve stopped questioning or share an experience that helps you see an opportunity — or a risk — differently.
And they’re not there to tell you how to run your business.
A peer advisory board gives you a confidential sounding board where you can talk openly about the things that can be difficult to discuss with employees, customers or even family. You get honest, objective feedback from people who understand the realities of business ownership and have no vested interest in the decision you ultimately make.
As one The Alternative Board member put it: “My board provides me what no one else will tell me – the truth!”
#3. Peer advisory boards are just another form of business networking
Networking can be valuable, but a peer advisory board serves a very different purpose. You’re not there to collect business cards, find your next customer or sell your services to the people around the table. You’re there to become a better business owner.
Over time, fellow board members develop a deep understanding of each other’s businesses — the goals, the challenges, the opportunities and the decisions that matter. That creates relationships that go well beyond the connections typically made through networking.
When you’re facing a difficult decision, you can draw on the experience of business owners who may have tackled something similar. When you’re considering an opportunity, they can test your thinking. And because they know you and your business, they can challenge you when they think you’re overlooking something.
The result is a trusted group of peers who are invested in helping each other succeed — without trying to sell to each other.
#4. My business is different. Someone outside my industry won’t understand it.
Your business is different. Your industry, customers, competitive environment and day-to-day challenges may be very different from those of the other business owners around a peer advisory board table. But many of the decisions you face as a business owner aren’t unique to your industry.
How do you attract and retain the right people? Improve profitability? Build a stronger leadership team? Decide where to invest? Manage growth? Step back from the day-to-day? Make a difficult decision when there isn’t an obvious right answer?
Other business owners have faced many of these challenges too — often in very different environments. That experience gives you access to approaches and ideas you may never encounter if you only speak with people from your own industry.
In fact, being outside your industry can be an advantage. Someone who isn’t immersed in the way things have always been done in your sector may question an assumption, ask a seemingly simple question or share an approach from their own business that helps you see the problem differently.
They don’t need to know your industry better than you do. The value is in helping you see your business from a perspective you couldn’t get from inside it.
What could the right peer advisory board bring to your business?
A peer advisory board isn’t about fixing a failing business, being told what to do, networking or finding people who know your industry better than you do.
It’s about having a trusted group of experienced business owners who understand the realities of business ownership, challenge your thinking and bring perspectives you simply can’t create on your own.
Whatever decision or opportunity you’re facing next, the question might not be whether you already have the experience to handle it. It might be what could you see differently with the right people around the table?
Read our 19 Reasons You Need a Business Owner Advisory Board